The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Applications that allow users to manage devices and device groups in a network through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) are known. Such network management applications typically allow users to configure devices, apply actions to devices and ports, modify Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and Quality of Service (QoS) settings, generate inventory and statistics reports, monitor links and devices, etc.
A network management application may provide a “topology map” of a network that graphically illustrates network devices and links between devices. A network topology map generated by a network management application may display various types of standard information on the topology map about the nodes and links in the network. By viewing a network topology map, a user can quickly determine various types of information about a network. For instance, link speed may be represented by a proportional thickness of a link line, the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) blocked/unblocked state of a link may be represented by displaying the link line in a particular color, and EtherChannel (i.e. parallel links that share loads) lines may have a striped motif on the topology map. A user can view a topology map that includes these types of representations and instantly discern a large amount of information about the network.
Notable aspects of a link or device may also be tagged with icons in a topology map. For instance, trunk links and optical fiber links may be tagged with special icons. However, icons used to display information on the map do not always instantly and intuitively portray information to a user, like indicators that are more closely integrated into a topology map, such as line colorations, motifs or proportional thicknesses. While integrated indicators such as link line thicknesses are obvious and immediately noticeable, a user must look for the icons on the map, and frequently will not see all icons of a particular type. If many different icons are used to represent various types of information, it becomes even more difficult for a user to find devices or links having a property represented by a particular icon on the topology map. Icons cannot always represent information in a manner that is easily discernable by a user.
Additional information may be presented through popup windows. For example, a user can right-click a device or link icon to obtain more information about that device or link. However, this information is not even on the topology map at all, and a user must manually select a device or link on the map to obtain the information in the popup window.
While graphical indicators integrated into a topology map are very useful for providing information in an intuitive manner, the number of indicators that can be integrated into a topology map is limited. A link line or a network device can only have one color at a time, and therefore the color of the link or device can only indicate one type of information. For example, if the color of the line is used to represent link speed, then the line cannot be colored again to represent some other type of information, such as optical fiber lines, without losing the ability to indicate link speed. While additional information can be represented by displaying a link in a striped motif, again a striped motif can only represent one type of information.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need to display more information about links and devices in a network topology map. Indicators used to represent additional information should be integrated into the map in a generic way, without interfering with indicators already in use. Information should also be displayed in a manner that is easily and instantly recognizable by a user.